NEW ORLEANS (AP) - The arctic blast meant a rare night indoors for 43-year-old Jason Morrow, who has been homeless for about eight years.
New Orleans shelters find a place for everyone on freeze nights. Other nights, says Morrow, he cannot stay at a shelter because he does not have a tuberculosis test on file and has no money to pay for one.
Morrow said he grew up in Bluefield, W.Va. “It has very good scenery but very few jobs unless you want to get black lung working in a coal mine,” he said.
He lived on the streets in Virginia and Oregon before coming to New Orleans.
“I came from Oregon to Louisiana because I thought it was going to be a little warmer,” he said with a laugh. Most of the time, it is.
He and two other men were taking shelter from Tuesday’s sleet at a highway underpass at St. Charles Ave. near Lee Circle. About 10 to 12 homeless people stay there regularly, he said.
Two or three blankets, three sweatshirts and coats and two pairs of gloves - “I just got another” - keep him warm enough during the day, he said.
He got the second pair of gloves from a couple who pulled up to the underpass in a sedan. They rolled down their window and handed gloves to one of the other men, who gave one pair to Morrow.
Morrow said he spent Monday night in a shelter and would go there again Tuesday.
Morrow said little about how he wound up homeless.
“I made some really, really bad decisions in my life. I’m paying for the consequences now. That’s how I see it,” he said.
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